Paired-associate learning and bidirectional associative recall in first, third, fifth, and seventh graders

Abstract

First-, third-, fifth-, and seventh-grade children learned a paired-associate list of seven pairs of familiar pictures to a criterion of one perfect trial, followed by modified-free recall. First and third graders required significantly more acquisition trials than fifth and seventh graders. Various component analyses, including stage analyses, were conducted to isolate the reasons for the differential learning rates. Both S-R and R-S recall were demonstrated to be invariant across all grade levels. Associative symmetry was demonstrated for all grade levels using both the conventional statistical analysis and a conditional probability analysis.